GruntDoc

2013 Top Docs | FWTX.com

March 31, 2013 by GruntDoc 5 Comments

Yours Truly shows up on this list, for the first time.

Fort Worth, Texas magazine sent more than 4,500 local physicians a survey, asking them to voluntarily rate their peers and name the best doctors in Tarrant County. Medical professionals willing to participate went online to cast their votes.

While Fort Worth, Texas magazine provided the fields of specialty, the physicians identified the professionals they regard as being leaders in those fields.

The final results were submitted to a select panel of physicians for review.

via 2013 Top Docs | FWTX.com.

Things are going to start happening to me now, my name in print!

Screen Shot 2013-03-29 at 2_40_15 PM

3 of these fellow EM practioners I don’t know, and I am glad to count as working colleagues three of the others.

Humbling enough to blog about.

Filed Under: Announcements

Defense Department says giving Purple Heart to Fort Hood survivors would hurt Hasan trial | Fox News

March 30, 2013 by GruntDoc Leave a Comment

Appalling decision.

The document (from the DOD) reads in part:

“Passage of this legislation could directly and indirectly influence potential court-martial panel members, witnesses, or the chain of command, all of whom exercise a critical role under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Defense counsel will argue that Major Hasan cannot receive a fair trial because a branch of government has indirectly declared that Major Hasan is a terrorist — that he is criminally culpable.”

via Defense Department says giving Purple Heart to Fort Hood survivors would hurt Hasan trial | Fox News.

But saying it’s not a terrorist attack doesn’t influence those same people? This is sophomoric at best, but bizarrely this is the Line from DoD officials.

Also, there’s a systematic robbing of the Fort Hood victims of benefits and now military awards, which is unconscionable.

For Shame.

Filed Under: Deployed Docs

How Doctors Die | The Saturday Evening Post

March 29, 2013 by GruntDoc 2 Comments

Well written, and I think correct.

It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.

via How Doctors Die | The Saturday Evening Post.

Filed Under: Medical

Delusions of Benefit in the International Stroke Trial | Closer to the Truth

March 28, 2013 by GruntDoc Leave a Comment

More TPa for stroke…

Delusions of Benefit in the International Stroke TrialResults of the largest and arguably most important trial ever of thrombolytics clot-busting drugs for acute stroke were published last week in The Lancet, and the study’s conclusions are breathtaking. Not because of the study results, which are unsurprising, but because the authors’ conclusions suggest that they have gone stark, raving mad.

via Delusions of Benefit in the International Stroke Trial | Closer to the Truth.

Well, that’s not good.

Filed Under: Emergency

The Favor

March 26, 2013 by GruntDoc Leave a Comment

As a medical student in the GYN clinic in El Paso, one occasionally needed both language and female standby assistance, at the same time.

Occasionally like 80% of the time*.

I asked one of the clinic technicians to assist me with an exam; after we were done, trying to be med student charming I said “Thank you, senorita!”

She said, laughing, with the clinic staff chuckling at my discomfort, “It’s Senora, it’s only senorita until someone does you The Favor”.

Education takes many forms. Sometimes when you don’t expect it or even want it.

(This is however a family point of amusement, which we sincerely enjoy).

*Medical statistics are made up on the spot: 75% are BS and the other 33% don’t add up.

Filed Under: Amusements, Family

NYC painkiller poster

March 25, 2013 by GruntDoc 2 Comments

From NPR:

Doctors who follow the advice will consider alternatives to opioids and prescribe only a few days’ worth of the drugs, if they decide that’s the best course for short-term pain relief. They’ll also avoid starting patients on long-acting opioids, like Oxycontin, and will refrain from replacing lost, or allegedly lost, opioid prescriptions without lots of due diligence first.

I like it.

Filed Under: Emergency, Policy

networking.answers.com

March 21, 2013 by GruntDoc

They found a dead link on the blog, alerted me to it, and asked for a little recognition if I changed it.

http://networking.answers.com/

So, there ya go.

Filed Under: Web/Tech

Southwest Airlines mobile design fail

March 19, 2013 by GruntDoc

So, I was trying to sign up for the Rapid Rewards for Southwest on my iPhone.

I got nearly to the end before the design fail happened. I wonder what I should answer when I’m not sure of the question.

Heh

Filed Under: Amusements, Aviation

F1 coverage on NBC Sports is pretty good!

March 17, 2013 by GruntDoc

This post has to do with Formula 1 racing coverage. Skip it should this not be your thing.

At the end of last years’ season, Speed Network lost the contract for US coverage for the 2013 season to the unknown (to F1 coverage) NBC Sports network. As I (and many others) had come to appreciate and respect the Speed coverage of F1, this change was met with trepidation. It was actually a point of conversation and bonding at the F1 race I attended in Austin last year (‘I hope they keep the Speed TV team’ was the predominate theme).

NBCSports kept 3/4 of the team, and the one not carried forward was Bob Varsha, their play by play guy with an encyclopedic memory of F1 races and politics. He ‘retired’, and I hope his life goes forward in a good fashion. Bob was terrific, and his replacement (Leigh Diffey, who covered a race or two every season) is quite good. Carried forward were the excellent David Hobbs, Steve Matchett and track-side reporter Will Buxton (who has no wikipedia article yet). I see that as a huge nod to the fans, as there have to be a lot of people who could do the broadcast job, but there was concern at NBC about the audience who liked and respected these TV personalities. Good for NBCSports for keeping them on.

The new NBCSports coverage for the first F1 race this season was quite good, and that that despite challenges! NBCSports not only covered the usual practices, but, when qualifying was delayed by rain, showed all of qualifying off-schedule before the Australian GP! It was a good race, and the Twitter coverage was, IMHO, better than the Speed effort

Kimi Raikkonen admitted that it was "not too difficult" at the front, and that managing his tires was easy http://t.co/X13TaZnYyr #F1onNBC

March 17, 2013 2:53 am via webReply RetweetFavorite

@F1onNBCSports

F1® Racing on NBC

. An embarrassment of riches in F1 coverage.

A good race, covered well. Thanks.

Update: fixed the title, it is of course NBC, not nbs…

Filed Under: Racing

Dumb American Speedometers: Ford Mustang

March 13, 2013 by GruntDoc

The other day my lovely wife bought a Ford. It’s nice. (They sold her a car that’d already been sold; then made up for it by giving her a car with more options than the one she originally tried to buy and eating the difference. Thanks Ford!).

While she was ~~beating the dealer until they cried~~ negotiating I looked at the other show-room vehicles. And I found the Ford Mustang (genes and all).

I was thinking Steve McQueen, and Bullitt. Really.

The drivers’ door wouldn’t close (on the showroom floor) and then I saw the dash:

Seriously, nobody in the US (or Canada, eh), needs 1/2 of this speedo. Yes, there’s a stretch or two of Texas highway that are 85, but 220? Drop this car out of a C-130 and it wouldn’t do 220.

I get marketing. You want to sell this car as a True Sports Car with a lot of Speed!!! Here’s the thing: as my eyes slowly age I don’t want to have to squint at the 1/2 inch to discern the difference between 35 and 45 while knowing this bad boy won’t go over 160, and never near 220. I don’t need a big HUD to tell me, but this display is just dumb.

Thanks,

a guy who’d buy a Mustang but not one with this silly detail in it.

Filed Under: Amusements, Racing, Rants

Some studies that I like to quote

March 12, 2013 by GruntDoc

Wow! Very nice.

Filed Under: Amusements, Humorous, Medical, Medicine

Talk Like A Healthcare Management Robot

March 9, 2013 by GruntDoc

My good friend Dr. Richard Winters has skills: doctoring, parenting, professional coaching, and computer coding. Add his dislike for mumbo-jumbo and his skills with javascript, and you get:

Talk Like A Healthcare Management Robot

Instructions: Click the button. Learn to talk like a Healthcare Management Robot.

via Talk Like A Healthcare Management Robot.

This is the most recent one I got: “Our clinical organization needs to transform physician-centered healing missions around value-added architectures.” Everyone in medicine can imagine someone saying that unironically.

I do like how he gets the point of the exercise across:

Be careful though. If you talk like a robot, physicians won’t listen.

Amen!

Now, go there, click, and laugh. This has already surpassed the Dilbert mission statement generator in my book.

Thanks, Rick!

Filed Under: Amusements

The latest Russian asteriod

February 17, 2013 by GruntDoc

First, thank goodness no-one was killed outright, though I did read someone had a spine injury. Recovery hopes for all.

Second, the whole town could have been immolated from the force of the explosion, but the detonation happened just high enough only some came to the surface.

Lastly, had that happened, and we didn’t have dash-cam video to explain it, would Islamists have been the first blamed? Russia has had a bad time with them (though the US led war has seemed to concentrate their attention on us), but there’s no love lost. Nobody predicted this asteroid, so there wouldn’t have been an extraterrestrial source to blame. A million dead (Russians, sorry I’m not good at current old-USSR nomenclature) would be motivation for reprisal…

The curse about living in interesting times has landed on us, and we dodged a bullet this time.

Update: this is at least somewhat because I have read Tom Clancy’s Sum of All Fears

Filed Under: Current Affairs